Corruption holds back progress

To say corruption is only limited to the government would be a major oversight in fighting this crime. Many acts outside the law have become “commonplace” and society is an active participant in them. From the bribes paid to speed up a document, permit, or application, to the ones offered to police officers to get around a traffic violation. It takes two, at the very least, for a corruption act to take place.

According to data by the Employers Confederation of the Mexican Republic ( COPARMEX ), 44% out of the 36,000 corporations part of the organization had to deal with the corrupt practices of a public servant. Through an anonymous survey, affiliate members were asked if any public servant – or those called “agents” – tried to obtain benefits by offering to speed up a procedure or to spare the corporations a payment or fine.

These kinds of corruption acts happen because of the desire of expediting a process stalling a project. Under the belief that “everybody does it”, we fall into this illegal practice.

According to COPARMEX, corruption incidence isn't the same in the country, since in Nayarit, 29% of companies claimed to have fallen victim of an irregularity when dealing with authorities, yet in Tabasco, this percentage rises to 68%. This shows corruption isn't as widespread as it is believed to be , and that it can be stopped. To achieve this, we need government agencies to start acting with transparency.

Corruption can become an obstacle for economic development. Many companies, mainly foreign ones, refuse to invest in Mexico due to the high corruption rate of authorities...and several companies have to sacrifice new investments due to the cost “greasing the wheels” represents.

In times of an electoral process, corruption has become a hot campaign topic. We need to listen very carefully to the proposals of the candidates to transform public administration in order to fight corrupt practices from within the government structure, in addition of ensuring penalization will be given to those public servants which commit a crime.

The progress of our country cannot continue to be held back by public servants trying to get their pockets full at the expense of development.

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